BETHESDA, MD—The National Institutes of Health announced Tuesday that it would replace its 50-year-old numerical scoring system with a streamlined three-emoji format, in which grant applications will receive either a thumbs up (👍), a shrug (🤷♂️), or a laughing face (😂).
“The old system created a false sense of precision,” said NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. “A researcher would get a 23 and think, how is my grant different from a 27? Now there’s clarity. You get a thumbs up, you’re in the conversation. You get a shrug, it could go either way. You get crying laughter, well, you know where you stand.” […]
— In Preparation, satirical science news, in the spirit of The Onion